Asus Zenfone 2 Laser Review

Asus is coming up in the smartphone market like many other smartphone manufacturers, thanks to their affordable range of Zenfone series but we all know it is not just the pricing of smartphones that rack in big sales figures. Had that been the case, Apple wouldn’t be what it is today. What attracts customers more than aggressive pricing is a feature rich device and that is what Asus is going for with their new smartphones. One such smarrphone that we are going to talk about today is the Zenfone 2 Laser.

The device that we will be reviewing today is the Asus Zenfone 2 Laser, which is just one of the many Zenfone 2 smartphones series released earlier this year. As if these number were not confusing enough, you have several sub-models under the Zenfone 2 Laser model with different specs. The device that we are talking about here today is the Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL. It comes with a 5.5” 720p screen and is backed by a Snapdragon 410 SoC paired with 2 GB of RAM. So lets get into it.

Look & Overall Design

The Zenfone 2 Laser looks exactly the same as its elder sibling or you could say the parent of the Zenfone family, the Zenfone 2. Both the devices are the same size and look exactly the same so you just cant tell the difference between the 2 by looking at their front faces.

The Zenfone 2 Laser has a rather interesting design. Unlike most of the smartphones that we see today, this smartphone here has no buttons or slots on the phone’s sides giving a very nice feeling holding it in hand. The power button is located at a rather unconventional position on the top of the phone with the 3.5 mm audio jack. It takes some time to get used to the position of the power button but thats not a major issue. Asus has made up for this with the double-tap screen on feature which means we rarely used the power button.

The Volume buttons are located on the device’s back below the camera which again is not something we see everyday. At first, this may seem like an awkward position but once you get used to it, it is rather easy to change the volume levels while using the phone. Also resting on the phone’s back is its 13MP camera, a dual-tone flash to its left and the laser autofocus sensor to its right. The back panel is user removable and so is the battery. The device uses a hybrid SIM slot but you can still use a microSD card.

Specifications and other features:

Like we said above, the Zenfone 2 Laser that we reviewed uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC paired with 2 GB RAM. There’s also a more expensive model available which is powered by the Snapdragon 615 SoC paired with 3 GB of RAM. This is the only difference in the two variants, with both of them coming with16 GB onboard storage space expandable to upto 128 GB with the help of a microSd card slot, 12 MP laser auto-focus assisted rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, 5 MP front camera, dual SIM 4G LTE support and a decent 3000 mAh powerhouse which should be sufficient to last your day.

The device runs on the homegrown Zen UI applied over Android 5.0 and offers a smooth user experience.

Camera

Coming to the camera on the Zenfone 2 Laser which is the device’s hihglighting feature. The 13 MP laser auto-focus assisted camera paired with the dual-tone flash fared extremely well on tests we put it through. It performs well in both, poorly lit and well lit conditions. The color range,details and the sharpness too are very good for a device this price, though it wasexpected of the camera centred device.

The laser auto-focus, which has only been seen on the OnePlus Two and the LG G4, both of which are flagship devices had not failed to impress us on the Zenfone 2 Laser either. The laser focus is although only a fraction of a second faster than the traditional auto focus, it manages to fucos on slightly moving objects very well and is noticably accurate as compared to its counterpart. The laser focus however works well only upto short distances and loses its accuracy when used for focusing on subject at greater distances. This problem arises due to the small size of the laser sensor.

Verdict

Considering the INR 9999 price tag, you wont find a better camera phone in this category. However, you can definitely find a smartphone with a better chipset like the Snapdragon 615 for the same price or less. A must buy if you’re looking for a close-range camera orinted smartphone under the INR 10,000 price tag.

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